Patty at Home eBook

“You’ll get praise from me, my lady, just
when you deserve it, and at no other time. Now,
skip along to bed, or you’ll have too great a
proportion of late hours.”

With a good-night kiss Patty went singing upstairs,
feeling sure that she was the happiest and most fortunate
little girl in the world.

So impressed was she with her realisation of this
fact that she announced it to Marian.

Marian looked at her curiously.

“You are fortunate in some ways,”
she said; “but the real reason you’re
always so happy, I think, is because of your happy
disposition. A great many girls with no mother
or brother or sister, who had all the care and responsibility
of a big house, and whose father was away all day,
would think they had a pretty miserable life.
But that never seems to occur to you.”

“No,” said Patty contentedly; “and
I don’t believe it ever will.”

The next morning Patty devoted all her energy to getting
ready for the Tea Club. She declined Marian’s
offers of help, saying:

“No, I really don’t need any help.
If I can keep Pansy out of the conservatory, we three
can accomplish all there is to be done; so you go
and sit by the library fire, and toast your toes and
read, or play with the cat, or do whatever you please.
Remember, whenever you come here, you’re one
of the family.”

So Marian went off by herself and played on the piano,
and read, and had various kinds of good times, scrupulously
keeping out of the way of her busy and preoccupied
cousin.

“Now, Pansy,” said Patty, as she captured
that culprit in the conservatory, and led her off
to the kitchen, “I want you to try especially
hard to-day to do just as I want you to, and to help
me in every possible way.”

“Can I fix the flowers, Miss Patty?” said
Pansy Potts, her eyes sparkling with delight.

“Where are there any flowers to fix? You’ve
fussed over those in the conservatory until you’ve
nearly worn them all out.”

“Oh, Miss Patty, they’re thriving beautifully.
But I mean that big box of flowers that just came
up from the flower man’s. He said Mr. Fairfield
sent it.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Patty, “did papa
really send me up flowers for the Tea Club? How
perfectly lovely! I meant to order some myself,
but I know his will be nicer.”

By this time Patty was diving into the big box and
scattering tissue paper all about.

“They’re beautiful,” she exclaimed,
“and what lots of them! Yes, Pansy, you
may arrange them; you really do it better than I do.
Keep all the pink ones for the dining-room, and put
the others wherever you like. Now, Mancy,”
she went on, “we’ll discuss what to eat.”

“You guessed right the very first time,”
said Patty, smiling back at the good-natured old cook,
whose bark was so much worse than her bite. “You
see, Mancy, this is my own party, and so I can have
just what I like at it. Not even papa can object
to the things that I have for my own Tea Club.”